


on dying (alone)

by thirteenghosts (newsbypostcard)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, open-ended, star trek beyond trailer fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/thirteenghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[stb trailer fic]   That Leonard will die -- that's always been true. But since boarding the Enterprise, he's been forced to come to grips with the distinct possibility that he might die tomorrow. Maybe <em>today</em>. Maybe <em>next week</em>. With Jim at the helm, maybe even within the <em>hour</em>.</p><p>‘Five year mission.’ <em>Hilarious</em>. He’ll be lucky to get another five minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on dying (alone)

**Author's Note:**

> mccoy is handily the character that comes most easily back to my fingertips but it has been a while. specifically it's been six months since i wrote this fic, longhand, in bright pink ink (???), with abbreviations and impenetrable notes to myself ("well, you know." do i???), so. possibly shaky. it'll come back. One More Week.

  


Leonard has long since resigned himself to the eventuality of dying.

Although -- _eventuality_ is the wrong word. It is more of a pressing pursuit, a prescient certainty. If Leonard looks out any damn window of the Enterprise, he's compelled to face death whether he wants to or not. 

That Leonard will die -- that's always been true. But since boarding the Enterprise, he's been forced to come to grips with the distinct possibility that he might die tomorrow. Maybe _today_. Maybe _next week_. With Jim at the helm, maybe even within the _hour_.

‘Five year mission.’ _Hilarious_. He’ll be lucky to get another five minutes.

All this isn't to say that he's not _grateful_. He is. As much as Starfleet is going to kill him, Starfleet also saved his life. The day he’d boarded that shuttle had been the first day in a while he’d made a choice for himself about his life. He’d been the only person he’d had left who could’ve possibly still died on him, and if he’d kept going as he had his death would have just as much manifested itself -- within weeks, maybe days.

But -- then as now -- the fear hadn’t so much been dying. Any idiot could die. _Becoming_ dust in the wind wasn’t exactly a pleasant concept, but _being_ dust in the wind had a certain appeal. It sounded … quiet. A bit permanent, but quiet nonetheless.

The fear -- then as now -- had been wholly to do with dying _alone_.

Say what you want about him, but you can’t claim that Leonard Horatio McCoy isn’t a people person. People drive him up the wall, all right, and in some cases (not naming names) they might even lead him ever closer to his perilous ruin. Worse still, he not only allows it -- he follows _wilfully_ deeper into that treacherous abyss. But god damn him if he doesn’t love those blasted fools all the same, each and every one of them, those human beings who burn the very brightest. He’ll never admit it aloud, but the anger he seems to be constantly beating down comes from a bursting font of love. 

The ruinous bender he’d taken in the six months before joining Starfleet? Anger and love, felt all at once, in great and insurmountable abundance. That combination seems to drive him at every turn. Leonard has long since been a student of grief, and to look at Jim Kirk blinking at him through bruises and gashes as though he'd seen a lifetime in 23 years had changed his life for good. He loved and lived in fury for that red-hot catastrophe. He loved and lived in fury for every goddamn fool who had the misfortune of landing on his table.

They didn't deserve to be there, not a single one of them. None of them deserved to -- 

\-- Leonard didn't --

\-- _Jim_ didn't --

Anyway. He loved and lived in perpetual fury for the wretched human condition, and the only thing he wanted the universe to hand him in exchange was not to have to die alone. One lowly request. That seemed more than fair. Leonard's never been much of a needful man, in the end.

In this respect -- this being his only real wish -- being on the Enterprise wasn’t really all that bad. Sure, death was lurking around every corner and surrounded the ship on all sides and stared blaringly, tauntingly out of each and every window of that tin can Jim calls a ship. But given Starfleet’s excessive emphasis on teamwork and shared burden -- given Jim’s extreme unwillingness to leave anyone behind to the point of extravagant recklessness -- Leonard at least feels confident that his certain, likely _imminent_ death would at least not be faced _alone_.

He hasn't always been certain the universe would give him his only last remaining wish. But working with Starfleet… he hopes. He might even approach confidence at times. _At times._ Not always. He hasn't totally lost his mind.

Yet this hope, this confidence, these shreds of belief, bring him more comfort and relief than he knows how to put into words. Grousing aside, looking out a window and directly into space’s unforgiving depths with a crew standing around him is decidedly preferable to having both his feet planted on soil and having no one by his side when that eternity inevitably swallows him whole. 

Given all his _generous_ willingness to insert himself into space despite its destructive qualities, Leonard feels he’s perfectly earned his miniscule shred of solace.

He has neither the time nor the luxury of being furious that it's Spock, of all people, who winds up next to him on his latest frantic flight from the clutches of the abyss. Leonard is, not unreasonably, instead preoccupied by the facts of the matter. Kirk has stayed behind on the burning ship, so soon after he's express a failure to believe in Starfleet in the way that even Leonard has managed. He has stayed behind anyway, like that bright and burning twit he is, and Leonard won't know what happened to him or to anyone else until such a time someone has figured out where the hell they are and also how to rescue them.

That's _if_ they survive this planet.

As though on cue, three drones rise up around them; set them in their sights, and drag that death knell with them.

Today might be the day the encroaching abyss finds him after all. 

All told, Leonard thinks... it's not that bad. It's with two feet planted firmly on soil, and he isn't, admittedly, alone. It might be goddamn _Spock_ the universe's seen fit to stick him with, but to the universe's credit he's never exactly been all that specific when it came to dying partners.

The burn of that final solace, alight in his chest -- a ray of hope shooting out from ruin.

He says it aloud: "At least we won't die alone."

Then Leonard straightens his spine and faces death dead-on, with a friend by his side.

The wretched traitor has the gall to dematerialize right the hell in front of him.

 _Yeah. Okay._ That seems about goddamn right, doesn't it?

The universe has never exactly been one to cut him a break.

  



End file.
